


Sweet Dreams

by iam93percentstardust



Series: Tumblr Prompts [21]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Night Terrors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iam93percentstardust/pseuds/iam93percentstardust
Summary: After Steve has a bad dream about Tony's death, Tony holds his husband and comforts him.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Tumblr Prompts [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817254
Comments: 19
Kudos: 224





	Sweet Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> prompt: hurt Steve or PTSD Steve being comforted by a kind Tony. Like this big guy just crying his eyes out and Tony's there rubbing his back and holding him and telling him he's not alone

Tony wakes alone, which isn’t terrible unusual in and of itself. Steve is an early morning riser and he’s often already gone from their bed when Tony wakes, either on a run or out in the kitchen making breakfast. But when Tony wakes with a vague disquieting sense of something wrong, he realizes that it’s still dark out—and that is much more unusual.

He automatically glances toward the bathroom, wondering if Steve is in there, but the bathroom lights are dark and when he reaches to pat around Steve’s side of the bed, he realizes that the sheets are cold like Steve hasn’t been there for a few hours.

“JARVIS?” he asks as he sits up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He has a feeling he knows where Steve is but he wants to check. “Where’s Steve?”

“Captain Rogers is on the landing pad, Sir.”

Tony squints out their bedroom window, trying to see past the city lights. He’s pretty sure he can just barely make out a huddled mass near the railing. He sighs sympathetically and gets out of bed, wrapping the blanket around himself as he searches for his slippers. “Did he ask you to wake me?” he asks. Obviously Steve didn’t or else JARVIS would have done so but he wants to know if Steve had even considered it.

“I believe he thought about it, Sir, both when he woke up and when he went outside. But he didn’t want to wake you.”

“Of course he didn’t,” Tony mutters. Damn self-sacrificing man who wouldn’t even wake him up in the middle of the worst panic attack of his life. He knows Steve has been feeling guilty these last couple days with everything that Tony’s had to do for the team and SHIELD but honestly, if he hadn’t thought he could handle the workload, he wouldn’t have taken on the jobs. He’s a workaholic, not suicidal. And really, he understands feeling guilty but they’re _married_. They’re supposed to share the load and that means waking up their sleep-deprived husband after a bad nightmare.

He pads out to the landing pad where Steve is curled up against the railing, watching the cars go by beneath them.

“You weren’t there when I woke up,” he says quietly.

Steve jumps. “Tony!” he exclaims, surreptitiously wiping at his eyes when he turns.

Tony narrows his eyes. It’s dark out but there’s still enough light from the tower and the city to see how blotchy Steve’s face is, how red his eyes are. He’s been crying.

“Oh baby,” Tony murmurs, dropping to his knees. He pulls Steve in, wrapping the blanket around both of them. Steve’s shaking, he realizes, though whether that’s because of the cold or because of whatever nightmares he had this night is anyone’s guess. “Darling, what happened?”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a long moment and that’s okay, Tony feels perfectly comfortable holding him instead. He waits there for as long as Steve needs, holding him close and rocking them both just a little. It’s cold out—winter in New York always is—but the blanket is warm and Steve needs this for whatever reason. It’s so plainly obvious that he’s not ready to go back inside just yet.

“We were on the train,” Steve says eventually. His voice is hoarse like he’s been yelling and Tony wonders if that’s what he was doing out here: yelling into the night to keep from waking Tony up in the bedroom. “The side just—”

He stops and Tony offers, “We could go inside, see Bucky, he’s right downstairs. I know he wouldn’t mind being woken up so you could see he’s okay.”

Steve shakes his head. “It wasn’t Bucky who fell,” he says lowly, starting to shake again.

Tony remembers: _we_ were on the train, not I. He’d taken it to mean he and Bucky but… “Oh my darling. I’m right here. I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m okay, I’m _safe_ ,” he whispers, picking Steve’s hand up and placing it over his heart. “See? I’m still alive.”

“I couldn’t catch you,” Steve chokes out but he cuddles closer, leaning his ear against Tony’s chest to listen to his heartbeats.

“I’m okay,” Tony whispers again. “I wasn’t there.”

“I know.” Steve takes a steadying breath in time with Tony’s but the tears are still sliding down his cheeks. Tony curls over him, kisses away the tears as best he can. “I know but—”

But the brain plays funny tricks sometimes and sometimes Tony is convinced that Steve is right there in Afghanistan with him rather than Yinsen, and sometimes he thinks about Steve with him there in the dark expanse of space, the portal shut behind them as they drift forever. Tony understands, better than most people he imagines, what it means to have dreams like Steve’s but that, he supposes, is the price they pay for keeping the world safe.

“Come inside,” he urges softly. “Steve, darling, it’s freezing out here. It’s like what you tell me when I make the temperature too hot—it’s reminding me of what it was like. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“I didn’t want—” Steve begins and then stops. Tony waits patiently to hear the rest of the sentence but it seems like Steve is done so he stands instead, holding out his hand for Steve to take.

“Come on, my darling. Come inside. We’ll get warm, we can talk through what’s keeping you awake if you like or we can just cuddle. You know I’ll be happy with whatever you like.” And that’s true. When it’s his own nightmares, he’d prefer to just cuddle through it but with Steve, he’ll do whatever he likes and that means talking through his fear sometimes.

Steve takes his hand, heavily leaning on him to help him up and then leaning on him still further to help him inside. Tony doesn’t mind. With all the times Steve has carried him to bed from the workshop or to the kitchen in the mornings, he can at least help Steve into their bedroom.

He curls up against the headboard, Steve tucked against his side with his head in Tony’s lap. Tony adjust the blankets over them both so that they’re both kept warm and makes one of Clint’s hand signs to JARVIS to turn the temperature in the room up by two degrees. Then he reaches down to stroke his fingers through Steve’s soft hair, gently combing out the tangles.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks after a moment.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” Steve says instead, finishing his thought from earlier.

Tony shrugs. “You didn’t.”

Steve gives him an incredulous look.

“You _didn’t!_ I woke up because I couldn’t sleep, not because you were making noise or whatever you think might have disturbed me.”

“But if I’d stayed—”

“Then I would have helped you through it, just like you help me. We’re a team. That means I help you and you help me, not you help me and I reap the benefits. We’re better than that.”

Steve hums. “I know,” he promises. “But you haven’t slept much. I didn’t want to have to wake you up from that.”

Tony smiles helplessly down at him, as disgustingly besotted as Clint always claims he is. He curls over Steve, kissing his forehead, his cheeks, his closed eyelids. “Only you,” he whispers. “Only you would sacrifice your own sleep for mine.”

Steve doesn’t argue the point with him though Tony is sure he probably could if he really wanted to. Instead, he just tilts his chin up so that Tony’s next kiss lands on his lips. They linger there for a moment, breathing in each other’s air until Steve pulls away and asks, “Will you sing to me?”

Tony brushes his hair out of his eyes, places one last kiss on his forehead, and says, “Always, my love.”

_Stars shining bright above you_

_Night breezes seem to whisper “I love you”_

_Birds singing in the sycamore tree_

_Dream a little dream of me_


End file.
